With the sea continuing to be relied upon for transportation, a growing need for efficient water travel is created. Typically, surface effects vessels use cushions of air to reduce friction between the hull and water, with some injecting air under the hull. A variety of hull designs have been developed with speed and efficiency in mind, as illustrated by way of example, with reference to U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,478. Boats have been known to include skids and keel steps for forming aeration channels for providing increased speed, as illustrated by way of example with reference to U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,549. Typically, streamlining a hull reduces hydrodynamic drag for minimizing areas of turbulence and wasted energy. As a result, various hull shapes result and may include hydroplaning hulls as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,666,160 for a high aspect dynamic lift boat hull having a hull step amidships.
Existing lifting body technology, used by planing boats in water, and experimental lifting bodies of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that led to shuttle in air, requires large amounts of power. This may provide one explanation as to why neither planing boats nor aero lifting bodies are used for large-scale transportation. The typically large power requirements can be attributed to the high resistance produced when the whole underside of craft is angled to create lift which as a consequence creates large drag, therefore referred to as drag lift.
Even with the variety of water transportation vehicles made available to date, there remains a need for improved efficiency in water surface transportation. The present invention is directed to providing an efficient transportation vehicle for operating in and over water.